Google is currently showing a “GET THE MOST OUT OF GOOGLE+” image with a link to Guy Kawasaki’s ‘What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us’ ebook. You can get it free here. You can also check my Google+ Getting Started links!
PortableApps.com Suite 1.5 with new menus and customization
The PortableApps.com Suite, a full-featured app package that runs from a USB drive, has upgraded with a crisper-looking and more customizable menu, the latest versions of a ton of great freeware, and other improvements.
A new theme brings some transparency, mouse-over effects, and display improvements to the PortableApps menu, but the release notes bury the big news—you’ll be able to theme the suite yourself in the next release, due out in less than two weeks. The app icons on the pop-up menu can be renamed or hidden, applications can be launched as an administrator, and the menu can hide all the icons and switch wallpapers on whatever PC you’re on.
A PortableApp thumb drive loaded with a customized Firefox browser, office suites, IM clients, KeePass, and other portable offerings is a great way to get things done when you’re at a computer that’s not your own—or testing out stuff on your system you don’t quite want to install and muck around with.
The PortableApps.com suite comes in three flavors (basic, lite, and standard), is a free download, and launches on Windows systems only. Got a killer PortableApp setup on your thumb drive? Share the app list in the comments.
Charter Implements Bandwidth Caps
A source familiar with the plans says Charter will be imposing a 100GB cap upon any Charter connection of 15Mbps or less, and a 250GB usage cap for broadband tiers “over 15 Mbps up to 25 Mbps.”
Cable carriers are concerned about being transparent in the way they handle congestion on their networks, given that in 2008, the FCC sanctioned Comcast for lying to consumers about their network management policies. With a new (and potentially more network neutrality focused) FCC boss in Julius Genochowski, cable carriers are making sure that whatever they’re doing — they’re informing customers about it first.
Charter’s new, $140 60Mbps tier will not have any limitations. Speeds of 15Mbps or slower will have a 100GB monthly cap, while 15-25Mbps speeds will have a 250GB monthly cap. “In order to continue providing the best possible experience for our Internet customers, later this month we will be updating our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to establish monthly residential bandwidth consumption thresholds,” Ketzer confirms. “More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows,” he says.
Charters Acceptable Use Policy can be found here.
What do Atheists and Christians Really Believe?
According to a recent Pew survey, 21 percent of atheists in the United States believe in “God or a universal spirit,†and 8 percent are “absolutely certain†that such a Being exists. Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith, wonders if they were also “absolutely certain†they understood the meaning of the term “atheist.â€
Since that really didn’t make any sense, he recently conducted a much more detailed poll of atheists and devout Christians through his website. Some of the results were as expected, others were a bit shocking. The results can be viewed via the links below. “For each statement the number of respondents averaged around 5000, 80-90% of whom were atheists. The numbers of Christian responses ranged from 254-787.”
Personal Data and Attitudes towards Science, Journalism, Politics, etc.
One phone number to rule them all – unified number for your phones
Do you have a crazy phone schedule? For instance:
8:00am-9:00am – Cell phone
9:00am-11:59am – Office phone
12:00pm-12:45pm – Cell phone
1:00pm-5pm – Office phone
5:01pm-6:00pm – Cell phone
6:00pm-11:00pm – Home phone
WHA?! Then of course you have times you might step our during the day, weekend schedules, other evening activities, etc. What if you could have ALL your phones ring at once via a single unified phone number? Welp, that’s what a new service call GrandCentral aims to do. From now on, whenever somebody dials your new uninumber, all of your phones ring simultaneously!� No more having to track you down by dialing each of your numbers one after another. It doesn’t matter if you’re at home or on the raod,�GrandCentral will find you. As a bonus, all messages now land in a single voice mail box. You can also play your messages on the Web, at GrandCentral.com, and download them as audio files!!!!
Get this… you can have all that for FREE for two numbers (say home and cell). For $15 you can have up to 6 numbers. GrandCentral offers a boatload of other features ranging from recoding the active call, listening in on a voicemail being left, ringback tones, custom greetings and more.
Unfortunately, they’re not in parts of the midwest yet (d’oh! no goodies for me yet). The only service I can think that is missing is transfering an existing phone number to their service. Check out http://www.grandcentral.com/Â for more info.